“Even the best existing computer algorithms have been unable to solve yet”: Still Think Video Games Are Bad?

In contrast to other forms of media, video games like Borderlands 3 are usually frowned upon, especially by parents who have kids always glued to their screens. Likewise, there have been many arguments over the years stating why the world of gaming is not what people usually perceive it to be, but none might be as convincing as this recent one, where gamers were able to assist a science research, thanks to a minigame.

Borderlands 3 was released for players to enjoy back in 2019, and soon witnessed the addition of a new mini-game mode called “Borderlands Science“. For those who have not played it, the minigame allows players to contribute to the study and research of microbes, something that we will dive deeper into later.

Borderlands Science was a unique way of implementing the concept of microbe study to a completely clueless player base. The minigame was first introduced back in 2020 by Dr. Mayim Bialik, a real-life neuroscience PhD holder and an actress known for her role as Amy in The Big Bang Theory.

Coming back to the present times, McGill University, the establishment responsible for leading the stated study, has recently published a press release for everybody to see, revealing how the game has helped in achieving the impossible.

“By playing Borderlands Science,” the press release said, “-players have helped trace the evolutionary relationships of more than a million different kinds of bacteria that live in the human gut, some of which play a crucial role in our health. This information represents an exponential increase in what we have discovered about the microbiome up till now. By aligning rows of tiles which represent the genetic building blocks of different microbes, humans have been able to take on tasks that even the best existing computer algorithms have been unable to solve yet.”

The release revealed how the players who participated in the research helped get to know more about the evolutionary traits of different bacteria that are found in the human gut. Additionally, an exponential increase in what was known as microbiome till now was witnessed, achieved by just handing a mini-game to a huge player base and awarding them in-game items in return as an incentive.

Available as a virtual arcade game found in the infirmary on Sanctuary 3, the minigame is essentially a puzzle where strands of DNA are represented as blocks and need to be sequenced/ solved by the players. While looking flashy on the surface, the game essentially helps scientists compare the data of different microbes, allowing for a deeper understanding of how they work. This minigame also helps make the game more fun than it already is, thanks to Matthew Armstrong who took the right feedback at the right time and managed to save the franchise from its eventual doom.

The aforementioned press release also unveiled how Borderlands Science was able to gather five times more data in half a day than what one of their previously released title, Phylo, was able to collect in over 10 years, being another testament to how gamers can help once in a while for the greater good, if an idea is implemented correctly.

Borderlands 3 is available to purchase on Steam.